Grain
Rating: 3 of 4 stars
Food: cocktails, raw bar and small plates
Service: sometimes overwhelmed, but otherwise professional and enthusiastic
Best dishes: fennel sausage, hot oysters, charcuterie and raw bar
Vegetarian selections: a handful
Price range: $$-$$$
Credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover
Hours: 3 p.m.-3 a.m. Mondays-Saturdays, 3 p.m.-midnight Sundays
Children: It's a bar.
Parking: no dedicated parking; there's street parking nearby and the Biltmore deck across the street
Reservations: no
Wheelchair access: yes
Smoking: no
Noise level: moderate to loud
Patio: yes
Takeout: no
Address, phone: 856 W. Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-881-5377
Website: grain-bar.com
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Krog Bar
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Holeman and Finch Public House
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If you want to get a great cocktail, these days its seems your best bet is to find one of the many restaurants that also happen to have a strong bar program. But, sometimes, nothing can beat the ambiance, energy and intimacy of a true cocktail bar.
Grain, a new joint venture from Bill Streck of Cypress Street Pint & Plate, along with chef Drew Van Leuvan, bar manager Kevin Bragg and partner Rob Caswick of Seven Lamps, seeks to bring that vibe back to Midtown.
At its core, Grain is a cocktail bar first, restaurant second — perfect for pre-dinner or late-night drinks and snacks. However, don’t let that fool you into thinking the food here is an afterthought. Van Leuvan’s menu of raw oysters, charcuterie and cheese, and savory small plates perfectly complements Bragg’s impressive cocktail program.
The space, formerly MidCity Cafe, is intimate. A concrete slab bar dominates the storefront space, with cleverly placed perpendicular wooden tables running down its length. This high-top seating makes good use of the limited space, while ensuring that you don’t miss the showmanship behind the stick. Floor to ceiling windows open the narrow room, and accents of reclaimed wood and metal make for a cohesive blend of rustic warmth and stylish charm.
Grain draws a diverse crowd, and given that they serve until 3 a.m. six nights a week, it quickly has become an after-hours restaurant industry favorite. Around 10:30 on a recent weeknight, I found myself amid an energetic mix of hipsters, unwinding chefs and servers, young professionals and the post-show crowd from the nearby Fox Theatre.
Just in the mood for a few killer cocktails and something to snack on? Grab an order of the gimmicky but cool nitro salted caramel popcorn ($4), served “smoking” from a dusting with liquid nitrogen. Or indulge in a clever edible cocktail like the apple-Manhattan ($5), three apple slices vacuum-sealed and soaked in a Manhattan cocktail for weeks.
Grain’s selection of oysters varies almost daily, but there are always six varieties, a mix of West Coast and East Coast. Oyster lovers may want to cut out of work early and make it down to the happy hour between 3 and 6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, when oysters are only $1 each. Otherwise, prices are $2.50-$3.50 each.
Van Leuvan utilizes the more spacious kitchen at Seven Lamps, rather than the cramped quarters at Grain, for most of the prep work. This also provides the space to cure all of their own charcuterie.
The charcuterie and the cheese selections come with one, three or five choices ($7, $18, $25). In my mind, a good meat and cheese spread is nearly obligatory in a setting like this, but Grain’s stands out. With choices like the creamy mortadella mousse served between a pair of sweet pistachio macaroons or the surprisingly balanced chocolate salami, infused with the potent Carolina reaper chili pepper, it isn’t hard to see why.
If you bring more of an appetite with you, fear not. You still should leave full and happy. If you can handle a little heat on the tongue, do not miss the hot oysters ($7), a riff on the trendy hot chicken popping up all over town. You get five or six fiery red fried oysters atop a thick piece of toasted brioche with a generous — and crucial — smearing of Duke’s mayonnaise. They pack a lot of great flavor without sacrificing it all on the altar of heat. You might break a little bit of a sweat, but they are worth it.
The menu here changes often, which means that your window of opportunity to taste the fennel sausage ($8) is likely closing. With winter subsiding, I’d wager this will come off the menu — it’s a hearty dish best eaten when you need to warm up from the inside. Slices of fragrant fennel-spiced sausage and fingerling potatoes come baked in a rich, garlicky, Calabrian chili rouille that is sure to elicit moans. Best dish on the menu, amid strong competition.
Bragg’s cocktail program boasts solid craft beers and a succinct but respectable wine list.
However, the beating heart of Grain is the cocktails. In a hurry? Then try one of the cocktails on draft, like a Buffalo Trace old fashioned ($11) or a negroni ($9).
Otherwise, your patience will be rewarded when you first taste the Warm Esther ($10) from your nitrogen-chilled martini glass. The unlikely mix of Four Roses bourbon, red wine reduction, cayenne and lemon is as stout as it is dangerously drinkable. Or try the crisp blend of gin, lemongrass, ginger, lime and basil in the Blooming Hill ($9) for a nice change of pace from some of the more booze-forward drinks on the menu.
The team behind Grain likes to say that their inspiration comes from doing a lot with a little. I say they realized that vision. This little gem is one I’m sure to visit repeatedly, and if you want to remember what it feels like to sip a great cocktail in an actual cocktail bar, I’m sure you will, too.
